Issues

Summary: Animals previously exposed to starvation exhibit a wide range of physiological and molecular changes, some of which persist long afterwards and may offer them and subsequent generations protection from future starvation events.

Summary: We propose that the neural mechanisms of the honey bee dance language involve systems of orientation and spatial processing discovered in the central complex of the insect brain.

Summary: If odors are required to activate the integration of local navigational factors into the map, it seems possible that such a process needs to occur only once at a given site.

Summary: Aquatic animals control their body position using a remarkable diversity of appendages and specialized structures, the function of which is crucial to regulating lift and drag forces for propulsion and maneuvering.

Summary: Across four insect species, the smallest target size a photoreceptor can robustly encode is sufficient to explain the detection limit of higher-order, target-detecting neurons or observed behavioural pursuits.

Summary: Veterinary guidelines prohibit hypothermic anesthesia in amphibians and reptiles; however, reflexes to noxious stimuli recorded in vitro are inhibited at temperatures above those during hypothermia induction, blocking transmission of painful stimuli.

Summary: Our study further tests the sound-producing mechanism in Gobionellinae. As in Gobiinae, it is related to head-pectoral movements, which shows the consistency of the mechanism within Gobiidae.

Summary: Fukomys mole-rats are subterranean mammals with manifold sensory specializations. Auditory brainstem recordings and audiograms of three Fukomys species reveal a highly restricted hearing range.

Highlighted Article: Investigation of different castes of closely related species of Myrmecia ants reveals that the structure of the simple eye, the ocelli, is influenced by the time at which animals are active and their mode of locomotion.

Summary: The Frank–Starling mechanism has no working in the stability of the circulatory system. Rather, the mechanism accounts for decreasing the need for central control and for speeding up changes in cardiac output.

Summary: Colonies of the bryozoan Celleporella cornuta exhibit unique resilience to future ocean acidification. This is achieved through plastic shifts in reproductive investment, calcification and skeletal composition.

Summary: The activation of glucosensing systems in rainbow trout hypothalamus leading to changes in the regulation of food intake occurs in parallel with changes in the abundance and phosphorylation status of Akt, AMPK, CREB and FoxO1.

Summary: Elongation of titin proximal and distal segments differs between passive and active stretch in skeletal muscle myofibrils, but not in an actin-dependent manner.

Summary: Corticosterone and metabolic rate show a strong positive association between and within individuals at different temperatures, which supports the interpretation of corticosterone as an indicator of metabolic needs.

Highlighted Article: Locusts flying in atmospheres of varying oxygen partial pressure, diffusivity and density reveal an economically designed respiratory system where convection is the principal mechanism of oxygen delivery to the flight muscle.

Summary: Significant metabolic costs are associated with calling in katydids, but these costs are context dependent.

Summary: Changing background values of deuterium and oxygen-18 show freshwater consumption by harp seals, which may complicate calculations of energy expenditure using the doubly labelled water method.

Summary: Experimental alteration of pollen levels to recreate conditions of maternal manipulation of resources leads to the development of a worker phenotype and hence reproductive hierarchy in a subsocial bee.

Highlighted Article: Redistribution of gas between anterior and posterior chambers of a compartmentalized swim bladder allows mouth-brooding females to better regulate buoyancy and swimming posture during this extreme maternal care behavior.

Summary: Thermal fluctuations during development in Drosophila melanogaster lead to detrimental cold and beneficial heat acclimation responses, while thermal fluctuations induce little acclimation response during adult exposure.

Summary: During digging, mole-rats anchor their upper incisors in the soil while the lower incisors are lifted through the soil. A quick, nose-down rotation of the head finishes an excavation cycle.

Summary: Xenopus laevis is able to individualize the digits, and the mobility and size of the prey significantly influence the kind of grasping pattern used. Grasping abilities are thus not specific to terrestrial or arboreal species.

Highlighted Article: A gene-specific maternal effect confers thermal tolerance to offspring embryos in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

Summary: Phasic recruitment of different cAMP signaling modalities in specific neuronal groups leads to the formation of temporally distinct components of learning and memory in fly aggression.

Summary: Sirtuins set interspecific differences in heat stress tolerance by affecting the stress proteome in competing blue mussel congeners, Mytilus galloprovincialis and Mytilus trossulus.

Summary: Yaw and heave generate cyclical flow patterns inside the mouth of a mechanized suspension-feeding fish model, aiding food particle transport.